38th!

Birthdays... They are supposed to remind you how another year has been added to your life. Or how many friends and family members can remember and show their appreciation for you on your special day. With or without Facebook reminders.

To me, it's kind of different this year. I was originally planning to have a grand videoke party and invite my closest colleagues and friends. However, the opposite happened. It became a very intimate one. By intimate, I mean just me and my husband dining after office in a Vietnamese restaurant at BGC. I had a very simple and ordinary day. Flashback a few hours before dinner, my officemates surprised me with a delightful chocolate fudge cake during lunch.

I think it's true. That as you grow old, birthdays begin to seem to be just another day in your life. No problem with me.

I guess my main takeaway from yesterday's "special" day is this: Time heals all wounds. God is just. He is the only one who can restore relationships, remove the pain, vindicate you, and make you realize that you have to take things less seriously unless it's about God. I've known these all my life. But sometimes knowing is not doing. I'm grateful that this year, I truly came to grasp its meaning. I've seen this kind of justice all my life. With God, delivering me through all the hard times and separating me from among those who plan wrong things. I became 100% thankful only this year. Late bloomer? Perhaps. They say it's never too late for one to change and become better. Even at 38...  


   

Why Can't I Write a Great Song for You?

Why can't I write a great song for You?
I'm always at a loss for words
My thoughts are filled with amazement
And my heart with gladness
But I sure lack the skill to capture
And write fantastic poetry that will reverberate Your majesty


Why can't I write a great song for You?
I'm just an ordinary person with an average knowledge
Whose vocabulary's not broad enough for a masterpiece
My name is obscure, no niche, no specialty

Why can't I write a great song for You?
Is it my lack of time?
My temperament?
My fears?
My hesitations?
My sorrows?
Or my excuses?

Why can't I write a great song for You?
My meditation tells why
It is because You are truly stupendous that no man
in his own wisdom, skill, greatness, fluency, capacity, or experience
could ever simplify into letter combinations Your holiness
It will be completely careless for man to think that such poetry will be
enough in resounding the Lord's splendor

So with all humility, I apologize for this simple yet heartfelt verse
I cannot produce one great song for You
Because You already know my heart inside and out
To impress would be external
To love and obey You are paramount
Because a clean heart would always be better than a great song... for You

(July 18, 2011)

Flashback Friday

28 March 2010/10:40 pm
Song: “Sometimes a Love Goes Wrong” (96.3 Easy Rock)

One early Sunday evening, I found myself reading my past journals from my senior year in high school until college. They came in handy during this time of lack of things to do. It’s much better than being my usual couch potato self. It’s the start of the Holy Week break, anyway.

Interestingly, what I wrote back then was entertaining. Background music accompanied my browsing. It is an old habit that could not die and a demonstration of my deep affection for radio. The anecdotes were like those of a TV series, mostly sitcoms! Never mind the grammar blunders. I was not the chief of the grammar police yet. (Speaking of love for radio, if I had a choice, I would be willing to go back moonlighting to the industry that I love. It was also the first media office that I got accepted into after graduating from the university.)

While reading, the big smiles of a teenage girl came back to life as I recalled specific remarks of people, the stuff they did, and my reactions to situations. This brought back the fact that many people were part of my loop. In one way or another, they shared a portion of their life with someone like me. Love was also inching its way, alternately followed by a cornucopia of youthful emotions of sadness, regret, anger, jealousy, competition, happiness, filial love, and the profound newfound spirituality. Looking back, life was superbly crisp and colorful. Like the ones in high-definition TVs that effectively captured the moments in their actual, strange yet exciting madness.

It dawned on me again that people, like time, are also fleeting. Even the words we say are also easy to utter and easy to forget. The intensity of how they were said is also easily gone in a wink.

This deep pang of guilt hit me as I realized that I lost a bunch of old handwritten mails from precious friends. Those notes served as witnesses to that time when nothing compared to the old reliable method of hand-carried notes or snail mail. Greeting cards were not electronic but “cute” in their various avant-garde styles of art. The notes also carried many revelations as to who I was and I how handled matters that were, that time, special to me. It is so sad they are currently missing.

My teenage life was not perfect as many of us. But I love the imperfection because God manifested His power and moved me in many ways to my amazement up to now. I told my son that he should look forward to his teenage life. For sure, it will be exciting and colorful as mine. Or maybe even more, with the Lord to guide him.

In the meantime, I'm loving the life God has given me. It may not be the one that I’ve been wishing for. But I know that His ways and plans are always much more grandiose than mine. I am excited about the future because of this.

Signing off for now.



Song: “Cross my Heart” – Everything But the Girl (96.3 Easy Rock)
11:53 pm

Untainted Love

It's all in my head

But when I am out there I'd easily forget

Your pure wisdom

I thought that I have

Has now escaped me

How could it be?

Cruel and tenacious

I think it was courageous

To be on top of things and get ahead

But most often this cracked ideology

Gets the best of me

So what else is there at the end of the road?

How could it be that Your love keeps chasing me

Whatever I put myself into

Your arms are on the rescue

The shame washed away

With your pure, untainted love

Now no more questioning

Just believing and receiving

This pure untainted love


---April 19, 2011

Notes to Self

1. This/these, too, shall pass.

2. Mind your own business.

3. Love. Forgive. It's your choice.

4. Be kind eventhough others are not.

5. Justice is not in your hands.

6. Speak your mind but tame your tongue.

7. Work as if you're working for God.

8. Never glorify yourself.

9. Don't compare yourself with others.

10. In order of priority: God, spouse, child, others.

11. Don't sweat the small stuff.

12. Let go of the negative.

13. The sun will come out tomorrow. :)

Unchanging Love

In times like this 
I seek You 
With longing on my face 
My heart thirsts for righteousness 
and Your overflowing grace 
I have always wanted You 
to be the King of my heart
But when I go out into the world
I always feel so far...
from Your love

But my Lord I thank You
For Your love never fails
Even if in times I sin
You love me
And that doesn't change

My spirit's often broken
My heart, contrite
You know how much I care to please You
But not with my might
Yet oftentimes I see myself
trying hard to be good
But then You assured me...

"My son, My love never fails
Even if in times you sin, I love you
And that doesn't change..."


---April 9, 1998

The Last Respects

Blame it on the funeral convoy we encountered on Skyway en route to my parents'. The comical gas-inducing conversation with my husband made a different turn when it suddenly became morbid: a talk on how we want that "last respect" to be. 

I first told him that my wake should only last for two days, max three. Because I don't want to be much of a burden to family members staying up late for days for that "last respect." I also dislike this tradition where people say only good things about you now that you're dead. It's a total waste of time now that the deceased will no longer hear the loving words. When in fact, it was really all not-so-nice while the person was alive. It peeves me when we have to be melancholic about the death of the person while who-knows-what you were thinking when that person was around. To me, wakes are most often superficial. Well, unless you were really dear to the dead person. I can only name a few sincere ones, including my husband's grandma.

I also requested my husband that I want to be cremated and that grey powdered version of myself will have to be in an urn to be placed somewhere in the house. However, I failed to mention that I prefer that my guitar-shaped tombstone shall have these words carved: #NotByGoodWorks #OnlyByFaith.

My husband, in turn, said he wants to be cremated, too, but that his ashes be scattered onto the mountains. I jokingly told him that it would require so much effort to those who are left to throw his remains. If I were to leave this earth later than he would, I want him to be always with me. I will keep his ashes against his request.

I can't remember how the path of our conversation changed. But we both know that the inevitable will always come. For now, it remains unknown whether the "last respects" will be prolonged and whether our last wishes will happen the way we want them to be. We are still alive and kicking! :-D 

At Last!!!

Finalmente!

Now I have my blogsite after years of attempting to come up with one.

The succeeding pages will be filled with all kinds of entries: prose, poetry, places, pictures, people, pondering, etc.

So, read on... At last!